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by titaniasfics
Summary: Peeta tutors Katniss in the pleasure of food - and of life. Written for the Everlark Drabble Challenge. Prompt: Tutoring!Everlark provided by LittleEvilIsa.


**More**

**_"[She] knew through her own flesh how fire transforms the elements, how a lump of corn flour is changed into a tortilla, how a soul that hasn't been warmed by the fire of love is lifeless, like a useless ball of corn flour."_**

**― Laura Esquivel , Like Water for Chocolate**

I ate what Greasy Sae gave me because somewhere, in the most primitive part of my brain, I remembered the mechanics of eating.

Open mouth.

Insert food.

Ignore the taste of ash.

I think she said she made rabbit stew. Or maybe it was scrambled eggs. It was difficult to recall because it all tasted the same to me. All I tasted was death. I smelled burning flesh and savored the charred bones of those I'd destroyed. And no amount of skill could change that for me.

**XXXXX**

The first time something actually tasted like food to me was shortly after Peeta returned to District 12. It was nothing more than a plain loaf of white bread that Peeta baked. He had certainly just baked it because when he entered the kitchen, the air became suffused with the unmistakable aroma of fresh bread. After having spent so many months in a sensory-deprived vacuum, I almost choked with the yeasty smell of it. Refined flour was a luxury in the pre-revolutionary days but now, Peeta appeared to have it in abundance. My mouth watered immediately and I felt real hunger for the first time in months. When Peeta sliced the bread and handed it to me, I held it to my nose and felt my eyes water. For once, they were not tears of sorrow.

**XXXXX**

Peeta came every day with his loaf of bread and I waited patiently, both for him and my bread. I greedily ate what he baked. I wasn't necessarily a glutton but suddenly I couldn't get enough of his bread. As soon as he walked in, I took the loaf from him, slicing off the end and chewing on it in a state of abandon that should have embarrassed me. Peeta looked at me, at first quizzically and then with a small smile.

The next time he came, he brought more than just bread.

"Try this," he said, handing me a slice of bread with something spread over it. "It's cheese and leeks."

"Leeks?" I asked. I barely spoke so my throat was raspy and dry.

"A kind of onion," he said with happy eyes, eyes that were nothing like the ghost filled ones he'd had back in the Capitol.

I tasted it and the flavor burst in my mouth like fireworks. It wasn't strong like regular onions but I could feel the delicate flavor in my nostrils and cheeks. I twitched my nose and smiled.

"I want more." I said.

**XXXXX**

And so Peeta began to tutor me in the pleasure of food. He didn't' have that much more experience than me with the variety of food that existed in the world and the selection was still limited. But Peeta was naturally curious and threw himself into his cookbooks while I threw myself into eating what he made.

He started naturally with bread and so I learned the taste of sourdough, whole wheat, rye and marbled loaf. I knew what berry nut loaf and walnut bread were, but then he made carrot cake and plum cake, milk bread and bundt cake, biscuits and crepes and muffins and cupcakes. And I made sure to eat more than my portion of each.

Peeta was possessive of his kitchen and always brought his goods to me but I knew we'd made progress when he let me invade the stronghold of his cooking area. He taught me to whip batters and knead dough. I was elbow deep in something more immediate than hopelessness and Peeta worked right alongside with me.

The time we took to prepare food was not wasted time, rather it was the way we recovered what had been taken from us. Sometimes it was silence that reigned in that creative space but most of the time, it was where our heart's confessions mixed with the spices, meats, flours and sugars and became the flavor of our table. It was where we learned to speak to each other again.

We made pizza and pasta from scratch and I believe we reached the apotheosis of ecstasy when I ground the meat of a rabbit I had just caught, cooked it in sauce and poured it over spaghetti. We were so enraptured by that meal that I let him touch my hand for the first time. It felt better than having a full belly.

**XXXXX**

I tried my hand at baking cookies. Butter cookies were my sister's favorite, especially frosted with flowers. I wanted so very much to get them right. It should have been an easy task – all dried ingredients and butter. But instead, I burnt them. Every single last one. I couldn't take the smell, the browned surface or the oven timer ringing and ringing, unacknowledged by me.

Peeta found me curled in a corner, crying my heart out. I'd burnt her, blown her up, killed her. _Murderer_. I might as well have run her through myself.

He held onto me until I became calm, though I was by no means better. He then patiently cleaned up the kitchen, discarding the death cookies. I thought I should do something to help but I just stared at him as he put all the ingredients patiently into a bowl, mixing them with his freshly washed wooden spoon and place them carefully onto a fresh sheet of wax paper. Watching the repetitive motion of him placing those buttery balls evenly spaced onto the baking pan soothed my soul and though there was nothing more to be done for those burnt cookies, there was always more to bake, another word to say, another thing to feel. The expectation that I could return later or the next day and try again was enough to lift me of the floor and help Peeta bake the second batch.

They tasted close to perfection.

**XXXXX**

That spring was a period of firsts - first dandelion, first cheese bun, first swim, first kiss.

It lead to other flowers, other baked things, other wanderings, other kisses. Each was a slice of life served on a chipped, stone platter – the aroma of blooming things, the taste of herbs, the feel of the sun-heated water, the pleasure of Peeta's mouth.

Under Peeta's tutelage I learned that there was always something more to have, something more to find. And I wanted it. I wanted it all. And I wanted it with him.

I wanted more.


End file.
